Supernatural

Is there a supernatural being? Can He walk and talk?

The only way a finite being can know infinite truth (where we came from, why we're here, where we're going) is if an infinite being reveals it to him.

Do you believe in things you can't see? Is it possible that evidence for an eternal being lies just outside your current sphere of knowledge?

How would you know if an eternal being existed or communicated? What kind of evidence would you want? Do you require the same evidence for your current belief system?

Is there more evidence for or against the existence of an eternal being? The atheist who asserts that there is no God could be evidencing "fantastic faith" (without factual basis) or claiming to be God (omniscient).

If there is a God, would He speak?

The God who would have the power to create and sustain life, would certainly have the power to ensure that His communication could accurately reach His intended audience.

The universe is either infinitely old or was created by an infinite being. The amount of hydrogen (which is converted into helium as stars burn and not significantly produced by any natural process) is abundant. The universe is constantly moving towards its outer edges. The observable second law of thermodynamics (things move toward maximum randomness) would be violated by a self-creating universe.

How long would it take a million monkeys typing 100 wpm 24 hours a day to type the first word of a Shakespearean play?...four seconds; the first two words? ...five days; the first four words?...100 billion years!

A being with the intelligence to create an ordered, purposeful universe would do so for a purpose. The only way a finite being can know the purpose of an infinite being is if the infinite being tells or reveals it to him.

Below are a number of quotes by famous writers, philosophers and theologians to spur your thinking.

Atheist:

A man who has no invisible means of support. John Buchan

All that impugn a received religion or superstition are branded with the name of atheists. Sir Frances Bacon

The atheist does not say, "There is no God," but he says, "I know not what you mean by God;" the word God is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. Charles Bradlaugh

A guy who watches a Notre Dame/SMU football game and doesn't care who wins. Dwight David Eisenhower

One point beyond the Devil. Thomas Fuller

A religious person. He believes in atheism as though it were a new religion. Eric Hoffer

One who sees no reason for believing in the existence of any supernatural Being and who feels no emotional need for such a belief. Ernest Jones

An orphaned heart, which has lost the greatest of fathers. Jean P. Richter

A man who believes himself an accident. Francis Thompson

Impudent and misguided scholars who reason badly, and who, not being able to understand the Creation, the origin of evil... have recourse to the hypothesis of the eternity of things and of inevitability. Voltaire

Frequently... a philosophical optimist. Having given up all hope in the very existence of a human soul, he pretends to a glowing faith in man's innate goodness. Franz E. Winkler

A person who, under an atheist king, would be an atheist. J. de La Bruyere

Existentialism, the Sartre brand... is an atheist who sees man as helpless, flung without knowing why or how into a world he cannot understand, endowed with liberty... which he may betray but which he cannot deny, to make his way as best he can in fear and trembling, in uncertainty and anguish. John L. Brown

Any well-established village in New England... could afford a town drunkard, a town atheist, and a few democrats. Denis Brogan

A believer in man as the highest being. Anonymous

A man related to God without being conscious of the relation. Anonymous

Agnostic:

One who doesn't know whether God exists, but is afraid to say so loudly in case God might hear him. Eugene Brussell

A man who doesn't know whether there is A God or not, doesn't know whether he has a soul or not, doesn't know whether there is a future life or not, doesn't believe that anyone else knows any more about these matters than he does, and thinks it a waste of time to try to find out. Richard H Dana

A confession of ignorance where honest inquiry might easily find the truth. "Agnostic" is but Greek for "ignoramus." T. Edwards

The person who admits that he does not know, and is consequently open to learning. David E. Trueblood

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sureÃ„that is all that agnosticism means. Clarence S. Darrow

I am ready to reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon no opinion even as more probable or likely than another. D. Hume

[Rationalism is rejecting] the claims of "revelation," the idea of a personal God, the belief in personal immortality, and in general the conceptions logically accruing to the practices of prayer and worship. John M. Robertson

Not open-mindedness; it is culpable inaction. Nels F. Ferre

It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty. This is what agnosticism asserts....Not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle... that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him....Simply means that a man shall not say he knows or believes that for which he has no grounds for professing to believe. Thomas Huxley

Doubt is a dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief. Charles S. Pierce

Believers and Belief:

Not a matter of creed. What a man believes may be ascertained, not from his creed, but from the assumption on which he habitually acts. George Bernard Shaw

...Deism, from the Latin word Deus, God, is the belief of a God, and this belief is the first article of every man's creed. Thomas Paine

True belief transcends itself; it is belief in something-in a truth which is not determined by faith, but which... determines faith. Erich Frank

Knowledge = Understanding the evidence that establishes a fact, not in the belief that it is a fact. Charles T. Sprading

Faith is belief, and belief has an aspect of firmness, persistence, and subjective certainty. Ralph Barton Perry

The most complete of all distinctions between man and the lower animals. Charles Darwin

Consists in accepting the affirmations of the soul; unbelief, in denying them. Ralph Waldo Emerson

True belief transcends itself; it is belief in something-in a truth which is not determined by faith, but which... determines faith. Erich Frank

A matter of taste. George Bernard Shaw ...Not... what a man is made to believe but... what he must believe. Chesterton

A fortunate people but a very commonsensical people, with vision high but their feet on the earth, with belief in themselves and faith in God. W. Harding

Faith = An assent of the mind and a consent of the heart, consisting mainly of belief and trust. E. T. Hiscox

Faith = An illogical belief in the occurrence of the impossible. H. Mencken

Free Will One of the principal organs of belief, not that it forms belief, but because things are true or false according to the side on which we look at them. Blaise Pascal

The natural belief in a Power or Powers beyond our control, and upon whom we feel ourselves dependent. Morris Jastrow

A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy. John Milton

God is the normal object of the mind's belief. Whether over and above this he be really the living truth is another question. William James

Theology:

A blind man in a dark room searching for a black cat which isn't there-and finding it. Anonymous

Miracles:

Hope A pathological belief in the occurrence of the impossible. Henry Louis Mencken

Ancient history merely; they are not in the belief, nor in the aspiration of society. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Miracles are the swaddling-clothes of infant churches. Thomas Fuller

Any one thing in the creation is sufficient to demonstrate a Providence to a humble and grateful mind. Epictetus c. 50-120

If a man is a fool for believing in a Creator, then he is a fool for believing in a miracle; but not otherwise. G. K. Chesterton

For those who believe in God no explanation is needed; for those who do not believe in God no explanation is possible. Father John Lafarge (b. 1880) of the cures of Lourdes

A miracle may be accurately defined, a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent. David Hume

God is a character, a real and consistent being, or He is nothing. If God did a miracle He would deny His own nature and the universe would simply blow up, vanish, become nothing. Joyce Cary (1888-1957)